


Strip It Down

by Caedmon



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Clintasha - Freeform, F/M, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 10:45:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5704744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caedmon/pseuds/Caedmon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint takes Natasha back; back to the root of who they are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strip It Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Swietek93](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swietek93/gifts).



> I haven't written Clintasha in a while and I'm more than a bit rusty. Bear with me! :)
> 
> As always:  
> I own a lot of things, but Clintasha isn't one of them. (If I did, AoU would never have happened)  
> Comments and kudos are the lifeblood of the muse.  
> Come talk to me! caedmonfaith.tumblr.com

Clint had been accused of not having a heart, and for a lot of people and situations, that was true. It was the nature of the job - he had to be what he was. Chinks in his armor could lead to immediate death - not just for him, but for the many, many people that he protected. 

But he did have a chink in his armor. She had red hair, bright eyes and was currently crying, her head in his lap.

>>——->

Natasha and Clint hadn’t always had the smoothest of relationships, but that kind of turbulence was to be expected when it started with the two parties involved trying to kill each other.

Clint, in the end, hadn’t had the heart to kill the young girl who seemed so broken, and had brought her back home to SHIELD like a stray puppy who’s been kicked around. Fury told him she could stay, but he had to rehabilitate her. 

So he took her to Iowa, to his safehouse there with another agent under strict instructions directly from Fury that Clint was responsible for the girl; his job was to keep them both alive.

She tried to kill Clint at least once a day for the first week, but Clint had expected it, was prepared for it. He showed her kindness with a single-minded determination. He was committed to compassion for this girl who had been abducted, brainwashed, abused, and forced to kill. She resisted at first, but it didn’t take long before she responded - cautiously - to his gentle (but firm) care. Like a turtle peeping out of its shell, she slowly acclimated to him. After three weeks, Clint proved his trust in her by sending the agent back to Fury with an update and request that he not be disturbed. Natasha was still terribly skittish, and any invasion by armed agents was likely to end in death for everyone. 

She emerged more and more from her shell every day, and Clint’s pride in her was immeasurable. She was smart, resourceful, and, once she started letting herself become what she really was, she was kind to him in return. 

It wasn’t long before he found himself falling in love with Natasha.

He cursed his own stupidity, but he was entirely too selfish and stupid to send her back to Fury. She could be hurt, even killed, and he couldn’t abide that. So, like a fool, he kept her with him at the farmhouse in Iowa, slowly poking his own head out his shell, offering it up to be guillotined by the woman known as the Black Widow because she killed every man who entered her bed.

She didn’t harm him at all. She simply smiled and shyly responded to his kindness - which now had a motive beyond both of their survival. 

He had no idea when Natasha started loving him back. It didn’t matter, really. He knew when she started joining him on the couch when they watched movies, or sat nearby while he tinkered around on his tractor. When he brought out his bow and arrow, she seemed curious, so he taught her. When they sparred in the barn, he started winning and pinning her to the mat more and more often. When he took her out to dinner, she held his hand in the truck. 

She kissed him that night, and she’d never really stopped kissing him. Clint refused to take her to his bed simply because he didn’t want to be like every other man who had used her. He wanted to be different, so he made himself different. It was only after two weeks of makeout sessions on the couch that he surrendered to her, offering himself up as the ultimate proof of trust. 

He woke the next morning to a rumpled-looking Natasha sleeping softly beside him, offering herself up as the ultimate proof of trust. 

When she rolled over, she looked at him with bright green eyes that held no malice, no ill intent, no impending doom. She looked at him like he was the greatest treasure she’d ever stolen - and she had stolen him. He was a goner.

But so was she.

Two weeks later, they flew back to New York, and Natasha worked her way up the ranks at SHIELD. 

>>——->

Their lives had gotten complicated immediately upon returning to SHIELD. There were very few easy mornings sleeping in, very little downtime. Natasha worked best as a spy, it was what she was trained to do, so she would be gone for months at a time. Reunions were always joyful and resulted in marathon sex. 

Not this reunion. 

Natasha had gone undercover as a prostitute to break up a child smuggling ring. Clint worried. She had been kidnapped as a child and forced to basically be a murdering prostitute for the KGB, and he was concerned that this may trigger painful memories or worse, cause a relapse. Every passing day of her three week absence and radio silence led to an intensity of his fear that she wouldn’t come home to him. 

She did, but his concern hadn’t been unfounded. She was a wreck. 

“Talk to me, Nat,” he encouraged. She refused, stoic always. Clint knew this time was different, though. 

She held it together for an entire day of debriefings and filing reports until she finally looked at him with wet, wounded eyes and broke. 

She sobbed out the entire story, giving sensitive information over to him but not caring because she trusted him above any other. He was delicate with her, comforting, and she responded as she always had - by diving into the kindness he showed her with blind abandon. 

As she lay now in his lap, snuffling but not sobbing, he came to a decision. Picking up his phone, he called Coulson. 

“Coulson. Barton. I’m taking some personal time, and so is Nat.” He sat silently while the senior agent spoke. “No, it can’t wait. If you want to keep the Black Widow and I in your employ, you should just sign us off for the next month. Nat needs a break.” He was quiet for only another minute before saying thanks and hanging up. 

“We’re taking a month off?” she asked, her voice still watery.

“Yes. And we’re going back to Iowa. Getting back to where we started. We need a break, Natasha; we need to hit the reset button. We need to strip it down.”


End file.
